Ovo što slijedi je transkript mog posta kojeg sam razočaran ostavio na Hellgate'ovom službenom forumu...nije mi se dalo prevoditi....
Znam da je tl;dr, ali ako vas zanima, lako se čita, i, ako ništa drugo, vjerujem da cete se pronaci u njemu..
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Monday, 21.30, peak hours.....
Typing /who command....it lists 3000-something players online. Sad.
Even more sad is the fact that im not a bit surprised...After being in the game since the beta which is a bit over a month i must admit that the game in general is a disappointment to me...
So...lets start...what are the reasons a game makes you wanna play it over and over again? Great atmosphere? Smooth graphics? Intriguing storyline? Sense of achievement? Bragging rights? Welcoming community?
Introduction
We all know the Flagship made this game following the steps of their mega-hit Diablo. In 1996, for the most of the game audience more than half a lifetime ago, Diablo brought so many never-before seen game mechanics which revolutionized the path of hack and slash role playing games. That was in 1996. Things have changes since then. It seems the developers kind of missed the point of that.
Getting started
To get a bit more concrete, how does the game work. You pay 60$, install the game, run it, pick a class, customize it appearance hyped over how great you heard this game is, and start your adventure.
Everything is perfect. The atmosphere is dark and moody, the level of details and shaders in game is simply astonishing, you're having great fun. By the time you get to the first subway station, you notice that it isn't really populated as you expected.
You walk up to the first player you notice and gasp over how miserable his character looks. The 12 polygons and lemmings like texture of his armor simply makes you not want to look at any other player again. Regardless, you play and have loads of fun.
As you hack and slash through 30-ish lvls you're somewhat disappointed over how much teamwork there is in the game? That three times you accidentally teamed up with someone really don't give you the sense of an mmo this game so soundly swears to be.
Quests and Storyline
A lot of people tell me, in the everlasting struggle between Hellgate and Diablo, that the mentioned had only 6 quests per act... When you look at it, true, it was little, but they were connected, they served a purpose... They made you believe you were a part of something...
So, i ask you, do the sidequests in Hellgate give you any sense of achievement, other than awarding you with a stat point and an unusable item? Does the fact that you "explored" a zone or "gathered 12 demon ears" really fill you with joy?
Lets focus a bit on the Storyline quest in Hellgate...I'm not going to talk about how well its written, since some people might like it, some might find it dull and unattractive, some may even enjoy it....De gustibus non est dispundatum.
What i might notice, as probably everyone else is the unexplainable relocation of people relevant to the quest? Did you ever get the feeling Lucius invented some stealth-teleportation-time-bending-every-time-every-place device?
Apart from that, which is, I'm sure, a pretty fixable error, did you ever feel like you were actually important for the storyline?
Did you ever feel like the London would be doomed if you didn't salvage that data, or blew up that Hellrift?
Did you not feel disappointed for after killing Sydonai you didn't even receive a pat on the back, or "Go you!" from some unimportant templar?
And why on earth did Murmur have to die? Was it crucial to the plot?
Communication
Even if you try to communicate with someone, you end up randomly in one of a hundred different chat channels. The mechanics of the random chats would be perfectly suitable for shutting down the rebellion in some third world country due to the confusion in communication. In a game however, all it does is cut down forming of any game community in its roots.
Once you peace up with the fact that you're forced to end up with different people every time you enter the game, you're rewarded with completely unsuitable font and character spacing, making it hard to read, understand and distinguish what anyone is saying.
Terrain randomness
The big ace Flagship had in their sleeve, constant randomness of terrain we fight in, which was supposed to make us believe we're playing a different game every time became the harbinger of territory sense destruction.
Say that you actually live in London, near the Liverpool station. You enter the game. Go to Liverpool station. Enter a subzone. Kill few zombies. Log out. Enter the same zone again. With a big question mark above your head you say to yourself. This isn't where i was three minutes ago. You try and convince yourself this adds to the game dynamics. Right.
Station randomness
Lets follow a real life example...
...you finally get a date with a girl you've had a crush on for a while. You even know she finds you attractive. With testosterone and self confidence maxxed out, you set to meet her in a local bar.
...you get to the bar. She isn't there. You call her. She says she's inside the bar waiting for you.
"Oh I'm sorry, it seems we're in different instanced zones, just you wait, lets team up and rezone... Team invite isn't working...oh, must be a bug..Wait i'll relog...Yes, yes, hold that thought! Be right back...
*relog*
You still here, ok /invite....oh perfect, rezone, still not there. Rezone again..."
*CLIENT LOCKUP*
Well, seems she was playing elite : \
Monotony
In some interview with Flagship developers i read an answer to a similar question about repetitiveness..."Remember the second act in diablo II? It was nothing but sand. And people still found it attractive"
Im not going to comment that one. That was seven years ago. And even in diablo II you have had a unique desert. A desert that didn't change every time you relogged.
In diablo II, we've had about 10 different terrain setups, blood moor, caves, desert, tombs, oasis, jungles, jungle temples, underground jungle temples, hell, deeper hell etc, all of these having unique color setups and atmosphere.
Lets see...how many different setups do we have here?
1. Ruined subway.
2. Ruined city.
3. Ruined city with narrow streets.
4. 314's mind which is strangely similar to the Fallen Exospector.
5. Hellrifts.
6. Strangely clean interpretations of Hell.
Needles to say more.
Item randomness
I must admit, no moder mmo can go without random items. Its simply impossible to make all of them manually. But do we really see a point in having ALL items random?
Of course, a public relation hyena would cut me off here with a slick remembered sentence "Every player will be able to have a unique set of equipment that no one else has."
Lets think about that one for a minute...Can someone explain how does this benefit my game experience? To have something noone else has? While everyone else has something noone else has either.
We're all braggers. We all know it. We all enjoy the feeling of having an item everybody wants but will most probably never be able to get. We all enjoy the feeling of ingame respect, however weird it might sound.
Here, the bragging right is simply torn away from you.
a) There isn't anything you can possess that would give you the right at all.
b) Even if there was such an item, people would see it as a 12 polygon flob.
c) Even if player graphics were as same as yours, there isn't a place in the game where you can show it off since there are NO meeting places whatsoever.
Conclusion
I'll conclude this overview with my impression of general game purpose.
If you haven't yet, once you hit nightmare, you'll kind of know what I'm implying on... The moment you get to Covent Garden station, the mere cause of being in nightmare is diminished to the Shulgoth farming.
The game mechanics seem to not allow you to progress unless you do this about 70 times. Experience feed is so messed up that in fact you are more rewarded for killing low level mobs than trying to fight your way through monsters that are 7 levels higher than you. Instead of saying "Wow man, you're really giving your best to bring this fuckers down no matter how hard it is....here, take this big fat chunk of experience", the game orders you to yet again farm shulgoth a couple more times. The more dull and worn out it is, the better.
And what once you hit 50? There is NO endgame content. Mobs are astronomically high level. There is NO pvp. There is NOTHING for you to do other than acquire better items that also have NO purpose since you cant use in any other way than to bash yet another respawned zombie. But well, at least it takes you a second less.
After all, London is under siege. Duty calls, eh?
edit: pretpostavljam da je zbog naslova topic automatski premješten u pljuvačnicu....zanima me je li moguće da se preseli u temu o MMOg ili Gaming opcenito, kako ne sadrži nikakve ofenzivne sadržaje osim vlastitog mišljenja o igri...
